Legacy and leadership mikhail gorbachev essay

Click here to find out more. The first among them was Vladimir Lenin, who created the communist system that challenged the West. The Soviet elite, it appeared, was eager to turn the page -- and turn the page they did.

Reformers sacrifice their popularity when they start to dismantle the old way of life, and this is true for Gorbachev. Age-old feuds, like the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, erupted and threatened to destabilize the country.

Even today, his name Legacy and leadership mikhail gorbachev essay mixed feelings in Russia.

He replaced Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who had served in his post for 28 years -- and was known in the West as "Mr. In an effort to pressure conservative elements in the Communist Party, Gorbachev also introduced the policy of glasnost, or openness, relaxing censorship of the media and restrictions on free speech.

Epitomized by longtime Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled from until his death inthat generation survived World War II and the Great Terror -- and prized caution and stability above all. There are leaders who have presided over the renewal of their countries: He ended up transforming his country beyond recognition, leading to the breakup of a once-mighty superpower and the end of the Cold War.

Gorbachev decided voluntarily to renounce the maintenance of the nuclear threat as a way of propping up the Soviet system. What greater happiness can you ask for? Gorbachev let the Soviet Union evaporate and, probably without intending to, turned out to be a great reformer.

History does not know of any reformer who managed to destroy an established system and build a new one in its place. The second was Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought that system down. The new legislature gave a political home to a nascent democratic movement, led by former political prisoner and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov, which was less interested in reforming Soviet Communism than in ending it.

No society has ever perceived reformers as heroes during their lifetime. True, he had hoped to preserve the country as a community of allied states, but national republics were distancing themselves from Moscow much too quickly and strongly for disintegration to be stopped.

Classical music replaced regular programming on television. He began his tenure seeking to reform, and thus save, a decrepit Soviet system that was falling behind its Western rivals in every way.

The two opposing sides decided to destroy a whole class of weapons that could have triggered a nuclear war. Something was very wrong in Moscow.

His actions were crucial in reunifying the German people and returning the former Soviet satellites into the European fold. Between andGorbachev showed that he was a different kind of leader. Then there are leaders who changed the world. First, he recognized that the U. Lilia Shevtsova is a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

InGorbachev put forward the idea of a nuclear-free world, which resulted in the Soviet-American dialogue on nuclear disarmament and the signing of a treaty on the liquidation of medium and shorter range missiles.

An ageing leader had not been seen in public in months. He also instituted quality control on consumer goods and initiated an antialcohol campaign. Black limousines sped to and from the Kremlin in the dead of night.

All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta. In Aprilhe called for a policy of "acceleration," a fast-paced technological modernization and an increase in agricultural and industrial production. Lithuania today marks the 20th anniversary of the day it became the first of the republics to declare its independence from the Soviet Union -- exactly five years to the day after Gorbachev came to power.

Overhauling The System Gorbachev began his reforms methodically. As Vadim Medvedev, a onetime Gorbachev aide and former high-ranking Communist Party official, explains, by the mids, there was a widespread consensus that younger and more dynamic leadership was needed.

He used the occasion of the 27th Communist Party Congress in February-March to announce his signature policy of perestroika, or restructuring.

His economic reforms undermined the moribund, centrally planned economy without establishing a functioning market to replace it, leading to widespread shortages, rationing, and public discontent.

But the forces Gorbachev unleashed soon took on a life of their own, ultimately derailing his goal of modernizing -- and thus saving -- the Soviet Union.

For one thing, it took the Central Committee just four hours to choose a successor, the fastest transition in Soviet history.

The Soviet Union became a global superpower under the rule of Brezhnev and his contemporaries, but by the late s and early s, its economy was stagnant, life expectancy had plummeted, and public cynicism was rampant.A quarter of a century ago, Mikhail Gorbachev began ushering in an era of change that still reverberates today.

Gorbachev’s Lost LegacyMikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in. Gorbachev: A leader who changed the world.

History marking the end of the Cold War and confrontation between two hostile systems vying for world leadership. Mikhail Gorbachev, however, has. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev showed legacy and leadership when he launched a program of political, economical, and social reform for the Soviet Union.

He changed and influenced many people lives positively with his reformations, and started a “revolution” that later seemed to get out of his. Legacy and Leadership: Mikhail Gorbachev Essay - Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev showed legacy and leadership when he launched a program of political, economical, and social reform for the Soviet Union.